Cooperative work in large-scale software systems

Software maintenance is responsible for approximately 80% of the total cost of software. In order to reduce maintenance costs by improving both software productivity and quality, several software engineering environments have been built. In this paper, we present the main characteristics of the Adele system, showing how this system is able to take account of software maintenance problems. We concentrate on the ability of this system to accept the specification of project-specific policies and how these policies can be enforced automatically. We illustrate this with examples which deal with software maintenance. The second example is presented in the annexe and shows an example of cooperative work in an aerospace company. We conclude this article by presenting the lessons learned using our approach and our projects for the future.